


Names

by zellieh



Category: SGA - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Technology, Aliens, Ancients, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Memorial Day, Memorials, Memories, Military, Remembrance Day, Team, Team Bonding, Teamwork, Veterans Day, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:17:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zellieh/pseuds/zellieh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you looked for them, every wall on Atlantis had these two lines of names, one running along the edge of the ceiling and one running along the edge of the floor. All of the windows, too.  Ever since McKay put the ZPM in, every evening at sunset, they'd glow for a couple minutes.  The first time it happened, Rodney'd been convinced the city was going to blow up.</p><p> </p><p>Written for the war dead, and those who grieve for them, for Remembrance Sunday, and for Veterans Day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoiler for S2 "Condemned." (Fic mentions Elron.) Beta'd by the wonderful Slashpile; any and all remaining mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Written for the war dead, and those who grieve for them, for Remembrance Sunday, and for Veterans Day. Dedicated to my grandfather. _Slainte._
> 
> _The paragraphs entirely in italics are **flashbacks.**_

John always forgot about the boring stuff in the rush of going off-world again. New galaxy, new people, new planes to fly: this was why he'd joined the Atlantis mission in the first place. Okay, aliens trying to kill him all the time was a fucking pain in the ass, but he was a soldier. If he was going to get shot at, at least he was getting shot at - by aliens! - in interesting new ways, on interesting new planets, in another fucking _galaxy_. Which had _spaceships_. NASA and all their pretty little sissy-boy astronauts could kiss his ass.

A little disagreement with an interesting new kind of alien ray gun left him on painkillers and light duties for a month, and that meant routine city exploration patrols. Ronon and Teyla had suddenly remembered an urgent Athosian trade mission to that one planet with the really great food and even better liquor, and tried not to smirk too smugly as they waved goodbye. McKay had pretended to consider tromping through creepy-but-boring corridors, in the cold, damp dark, for about 0.003 of a nanosecond before muttering something in Physics and bailing for his nice, warm lab. The traitor.

*

_He remembered that, at first, they hadn't even noticed the inscriptions on the city's walls, too busy trying to survive. They were tiny, smaller than half a postcard; not carved, or even lightly etched; only really visible if you stood close; just a word or two in each space._

A couple of months later, one of the beakers had finally found an entry about the inscriptions in Atlantis' database, in some ancient Ancient dialect, and the linguists and anthropologists and archaeologists had argued passionately about it for hours. Elizabeth had looked so happy to be doing something that didn't involve anybody dying.

*

That left John with the other two on his temporary team: 'Cocky' Ngoyen, who was a damn good shot, and slightly scary when he fought hand-to-hand, and Aron yk Trell mu Elron (S'okay if I just call you Elron, right?), who could read and speak Ancient, and had turned out to be pretty good with Pegasus galaxy weapons of all kinds, although he could be hard to handle. John just wished the guy would spend less time in McKay's lab: he didn't need extra training from the master.

So now they were three hours into a four hour shift, and all of them were bored as piss. (Empty hall, empty room, empty room, empty room. Oh, look! Another empty room!) Then they turned into a new hallway, and something made them tense up. John flexed his hands on his P-90, finger on the safety, and heard the others moving into position. Elron fell back behind the soldiers, his little ray gun out and ready, and Cocky stood tense off to the side, scanning the hallway. Which was - empty. Short, doorless, windowless, blank-walled, and - empty.

*

_In the end, Elizabeth and the rest of the experts had decided that the inscriptions were names, like those fundraising schemes back on Earth - buy a brick, build a library - which made a weird kind of sense; it'd take a lot of money and resources to build a flying city, even for a race of advanced aliens._

_The thought that even the Ancients had had badly-managed government projects that ran out of money was either reassuring, making them more human and less alien, or really depressing. So, even when you're all technologically-advanced glowy demi-gods, you still have government cock-ups and red-tape? Was that what the human race had to look forward to? Oh, let joy be unconfined._

*

John checked their rear and then eased forward, eyes scanning the space in front of him methodically. Nothing. No Ancient doo-dads, no statues or carvings, no paintings or frescoes. (And hadn't the Ancient frescoes on MX0-676 been fun, just lighting up as he walked by. Which apparently meant he was either the locals' new king, or a wanted criminal; he never had been able to get that straight. Elron, their so-called Ancient expert for that mission, had been no help. He'd laughed for three days straight after they got back through the gate, and every time John tried to ask him about MX0-676, he'd start sniggering again. John was starting to think he might be better off not knowing.)

He checked the corridor again: still nothing, but it still felt weird, off; just plain _wrong_. The lack of an obvious threat made him twitchy. Cocky caught his eye and nodded at one of the walls. John followed his glance and saw a tiny lump on the floor halfway along; the only break in the otherwise featureless hall. He clicked his radio on, called it in, and left the channel open, noting the little click-tick noises that meant Elron and Cocky were doing the same.

*

_If you looked for them, every wall on Atlantis had these two lines of names, one running along the edge of the ceiling and one running along the edge of the floor. All of the windows, too. Ever since McKay put the ZPM in, every evening at sunset, they'd glow for a couple minutes. The first time it happened, Rodney'd been convinced the city was goning to blow up. _

John remembered thinking that the names were kind of creepy at first, and then just weird because you could hardly see them, so what was the point? Then, when they started glowing at sunset, that was kind of cool for awhile, before it became mind-numbingly boring, because the geeks just would not shut up about them.

*

They moved forward cautiously, silently, and when Elron suddenly blurted out, "It's the names!" John nearly had a heart attack.

Cocky looked confused. "The names?"

Elron nodded enthusiastically, and then threw in one of McKay's you're-all-morons eye-rolls when they didn't immediately get it. "That's what's wrong with the corridor. The names stop, right there." He pointed along the hall, and John noticed the subtle shift - the absence - that had made them all so twitchy.

The little almost-invisible inscriptions, the background wallpaper of every room in Atlantis he'd ever been in, stopped halfway down the hall, just past the mysterious little bundle at the base of the left-hand wall. Elron was right - _that's_ what had felt off. He only realised how tense he'd been when he relaxed, shared a sheepish grin with Cocky, and called it in. John's team moved, more confident now they knew what had alarmed them, but still cautious.

*

_He remembered that the soft scientists had muttered on for hours about the names, excited all over again. McKay and Zelenka had yelled at each other about the tech that made them glow, all of them polysyllabic with glee, and John had tuned them out and prayed for the meeting to finish._

He'd had more important stuff to do.

*

Cocky stayed back and kept watch, while Elron examined the inscriptions, muttering as he tried to work out why they stopped here. John looked at the bundle by the wall, and _knew_.

He called in the details, and Elizabeth called in the scientists. They burbled on enthusiastically through his earpiece, much more excited than usual, as they tried to understand. The snap in McKay's voice as he cut off the other scientists' speculation and sent a team was a relief. Cocky nodded approvingly when they heard McKay insist on coming to examine the memorial himself; McKay _understood_.

Elron knelt next to the other wall, head up as his eyes scanned the names running along the ceiling. John knelt down, reached out to touch the little doll, and the ancient flower tied to it crumbled into dust. He thought of the names - the millions of names winding around Atlantis' halls and through her rooms - tuned the scientists out, stood tall, and saluted the Ancient dead, silently.


End file.
